Various tires such as a pneumatic tire are generally produced by sequentially arranging tire constituting members made of unvulcanized rubber and the like around a body to be formed, forming an unvulcanized tire and then vulcanizing and molding it. Conventionally, as the above tire producing apparatus, there is known an apparatus that attaches the front end portions of tire constituting members to the outer circumference of a forming drum, that winds the tire constituting members one turn by rotating the forming drum and that forms them into a predetermined shape by joining the front end portions and the rear end portions (see patent document 1).
Incidentally, in terms of the uniformity and the like of a tire, it is necessary to accurately wind a tire constituting member around a body to be formed and thereby stabilize, each time a tire is formed, the position where the tire constituting member is arranged with respect to the body to be formed and the overlapping of end portions and to keep their variations small. In particular, at the start and end of the winding of the tire constituting member, the position where the tire constituting member is arranged with respect to the body to be formed is highly likely to be displaced from a target position, and thus it is necessary to accurately attach and arrange the front end portions and the rear end portions thereof. Hence, in a tire forming process, for example, specifications for allowable ranges of the amount of displacement of the position of the arrangement from the target position, the amount of displacement of the end portions from each other in the width direction, the amount of overlapping (the amount of joining) of the end portions and the like are set, and these specifications are used to determine whether or not they are satisfactory, with the result that the accuracy of the winding of the tire constituting member required for the performance of the tire is ensured.
On the other hand, conventionally, a tire constituting member is supplied and wound around a body to be formed, and thereafter its rear end portion is manually cut, is aligned by hand with its front end portion and is attached to the body to be formed. In this case, since it is possible not only to hold by hand the tire constituting member and easily guide it to the proper position of the arrangement but also to align and attach the position of the rear end portion with and to the position of the front end portion while finely adjusting the position of the rear end portion, it is possible to accurately arrange the tire constituting member and join the end portions, with the result that it is possible to relatively stably satisfy specifications and accuracy for the winding.
However, when the winding is required to be performed by hand, it is difficult to achieve automation of the entire tire producing process and enhance the productivity thereof, and this prevents the automation of the entire tire forming process that has been recently required. Hence, it is required to wind the tire constituting member around the body to be formed without requiring hand work while ensuring sufficient accuracy corresponding to the type of the tire constituting member and the like. In this case, it is necessary to automatically adjust the position of the arrangement of the front end portion and the rear end portion of the tire constituting member, accurately attach it to the body to be formed and achieve the overall accuracy of the winding.
Patent document 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 07-40460